OLEAN, N.Y. - Sara Pfeiffer doesn't know how old she was when she realized she had a knack for getting buckets.

"I've always been able to score, says the Olean senior. "No matter what, everybody's relying on me to either get it in the basket, get an assist."

Pfeiffer first made varsity as an 8th-grader - as a senior, she leads the Huskies in scoring with 35 points per game.

"The first game of the season, I remember we went to Wellsville," Pfeiffer remembers. "It was just a crazy game, I remember already getting face-guarded."

It didn't work - Pfeiffer crossed the thousand-point mark and became Olean's all-time leading scorer before the end of her sophomore season,

"I didn't think I would do that that quickly," she says. 

"It speaks about what kind of athlete she is," explains Chelsea Bowker, her head coach. "She's determined. She's in the gym more than anyone I know. If we don't have practice, you can find her at the Y shooting."

Pfeiffer has always wanted to play college hoops - she spent junior year at a prep school in Arizona to boost her recruiting. Pfeiffer helped Seton Catholic win a state championship, and then returned home for her senior year.

"I think it's the family and support I have in Olean," she says. "I knew I would want to come back with all these people here supporting me. I want to do one last thing for them."

As for Chelsea Bowker, she's enjoyed coaching Pfeiffer in her season leading the Huskies, and she thinks Pfeiffer has the heart to play Division I. Even if coaches may think size is an issue.

"I had the best shooter in the country on my team when I played in college, and she was shorter than Sara," says Bowker, who played at St. Bonaventure alongside Jessica Jenkins, Bona's all-time leading three-point shooter.

"We made it to the Sweet 16 with her. She played professionally. It's not about height, it's about what's upstairs. What I've seen over the last few years from where she was when she left and then now? She's hard-nosed. If she's at the bottom, she'll make it to the top."

That hard-nosed approach helped Pfeiffer cross 2,000 points earlier this year; we'll see how it helps the Huskies during sectionals, and maybe even states.